What a Difference a Diet Change Can Make

Nicholas PollakOP-ED

[img]560|left|Nicholas D. Pollak|remove link|no_popup[/img]A young lady came to see me today for help. Originally from Alaska, she lived in Utah for two years, the first in a rehab clinic for drug and eating issues. She chose to live there on her own for another year before moving to Los Angeles to pursue her acting career.

Currently working as a waitress, she has written a play, which recently was performed in a local theatre.

Her childhood was not a good one. She was six years old when her father and mother divorced. When she was 11, her mother married a man who physically and mentally abused my new client. She insisted the abuse was not intentional, but it was bad all the same.

Her Mother’s Inadquacies

Her mother constantly needed a male companion. The character of the man she was dating did not matter. What mattered was that she was dating. Her mother had issues with food. A follower of every fad diet, she would minimize the food she gave her daughter whom she felt was growing too fast. Her mother complained about having to buy new clothes to accommodate her growth. The daughter turned out to be much taller than others her age, and she was a target for bullying at school. Students even threw rocks at her.

Meanwhile my client became a latch key kid. She spent long hours alone at home after school because her mother and stepfather were working. At all times, her mother was intent on reducing the amounts of food given to her and her sister. Frequently, they would go to bed hungry. Her mother was so sure vegetables were healthy that for two straight months she served the girls an exclusive vegetable diet, steamed or raw. Nothing else. My client finally escaped from her home after a year and checked into the rehab center. She claims to have fully dealt with her eating issues, and after talking to her, I was inclined to agree. She was, however, experiencing panic and stress. I talked with her about her diet. It turned out a nutritionist had told her that she was hypoglycemic and needed to be careful about the amount of carbohydrates that she ate. Too many carbohydrates would have an adverse affect on her blood sugar levels, she was advised.

Working Fast

I asked her to follow a protein-rich diet I have given to many clients. By being faithful to it, she could expect to feel better within 72 hours.

On the third day she called me out of the blue to say she was indeed feeling much better. Her sweats had stopped. So had her shaking. She was thinking clearly. Her feelings of hopelessness had vanished.

If you are a person with wildly fluctuating sugar levels, you may expect sweating, irritability, wide mood swings, heart palpitations, nervousness, panic and anxiety attacks as well as insomnia.

With stable blood sugar levels and a brain that is nourished as it should be, the aforementioned symptoms will ease and disappear by eating the right foods every two hours. Not huge meals, but small protein-rich ones. For example, perhaps bacon and eggs for breakfast followed by a mid-morning snack of a high protein, low carbohydrate protein bar, followed by a lunch of meat and salad, with a mid-afternoon snack of nuts, followed by a fish or chicken dinner and a protein snack two hours before bedtime.

The brain will function best with this diet. It will operate from its higher thinking and logical levels, allowing you to make clearly thought-out decisions. As the brain is nourished properly it does not have to be concerned with what to do if there is not enough nourishment. Should that occur, the brain finds a way to create it that is not pleasant, a scenario that spurs an adrenaline rush. A huge amount of adrenaline is delivered to the brain in a quick, short burst. This gives you the energy the brain wants but leaves your already inadequate and depleted sugar even further depleted. Accompanying symptoms are the sweats, the panic attacks and so on.

My client is a young lady who enjoys being alone as much as she enjoys being with people. She is coming to terms with not wanting to be the center of attention or not being with others. By no means a recluse, she is fine meeting people on a one-on-one basis but does not like to be the center of attention. Once she discovered it was fine to be this way, her attitude improved even more.

Her life is much better. No longer plagued by feelings of inadequacy, her mood swings, panic, anxiety and insomnia are gone. She has not gained weight, which had been a concern. Fit and exercising regularly, she is enjoying her job as well as her writing and acting career.

Who knew the right nutrition could have such a profound effect? I did, and now you do, too.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me by telephone, 310.204.3321, or by email at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net. See my website at www.hypnotherapy4you.net